NEW YORK - Sept. 26, 2011 - Sunday Night Football was the No. 1 broadcast on Sunday night for the third consecutive week, according to overnight data released today by The Nielsen Company. Last night's game faced competition from 11 network season premieres.

Last night's Steelers-Colts Sunday Night Football game on NBC, in which the defending AFC Champion Pittsburgh Steelers defeated the Indianapolis Colts, without their star quarterback Peyton Manning, 23-20, registered a 13.2 overnight rating and a 21 share, a gain of two percent over last year's Week 3 game (Jets-Dolphins, 13.0/21). It marks the best overnight rating in the six years of Sunday Night Football while facing the opening Sunday of the primetime television season.

The overnight rating peaked from 11-11:30 p.m. ET at a 14.4/25.

DOMINATED DEBUT COMPETITION: Last night's Sunday Night Football broadcast dominated against 11 network premiere programs including ABC's Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, Desperate Housewives and Pan Am; CBS's 60 Minutes, Amazing Race, The Good Wife and CSI Miami; and Fox's The Simpsons, The Cleveland Show, Family Guy and American Dad.

NBC led the night among metered markets in primetime (7-11 p.m. ET) with a 9.9/16 topping the 7.9/12 for second-place CBS by 25 percent. NBC also beat Fox by 52 percent (6.5/10) and ABC by 60 percent (6.2/10).

When the viewership is available tomorrow from Nielsen, Sunday Night Football is expected to be the most-watched Sunday night show for the third consecutive week. This continues a trend for SNF dominating Sunday nights. Last season, Sunday Night Football was the No. 1 show all 18 nights (100 percent) vs. its competition (16 Sundays, one Tuesday and one Thursday).